My personal favorite when teams are pressing on-ball: “He/She is holding him/her!!!”
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This upcoming weekend, ideally in a random 12u game, it would be epic to hear a parent yell “Not a shooter!”
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This is going to be long, but I promise it has meaning..
My daughter was 12U (she is now a freshman playing D1 WP), but her actual age at the time was 11. We where at a tournament in SoCal (cannot remember, but I think Costa Mesa HS with the covers over the bleachers, raining so hard our popup we had ripped from the water pooling). A game was going on in the pool, we were early (hour before is late) and we were watching the 18U game, standing around, acting like typical 12U dad’s.
A mom for one of the 18U girls playing was standing by us and was eavesdropping. So she kinda joined in our conversation, and she was an absolute blast to talk to for two hours. She reminisced with us of her life as a WP mom and was jealous we were at 12U as her daughter was graduating and going to college.
As she was leaving, she then told the group of dad’s something that hit us like a brick truck (for an idea, we are talking 2018 era before COVID and the kids on the Nightly News on life support with breathing machines from a bad batch of vape)
“When we were kids, our mom and dad’s were worried about us going out and coming home pregnant. Today, with contraceptives, Plan B and just more awareness of the ramifications of teenage pregnancy, this was the least of my concern. Do you know what my concern was? Vaping. I was deathly afraid my daughter would vape and I could not stop her. Today, I can proudly say, my daughter has not vaped, I never found a vape pen and she whom I trust told me that vaping is stupid. Talk to your girls, I can proudly say, my daughter never vaped and I am so happy I got her through her 18 years and she did not vape.”
Vaping. Not teenage pregnancy. This for me was a moment
To this day, the dad’s who were there still will talk about that warning. Of the 5 (or 7) dads that were there, 4 of our daughters ended up playing in College and someone every year will bring that conversation up. I can proudly say my daughter did not vape throughout HS and she hates the kids at the UC who do and avoids them like the plague. Did we as a family get through that as a team? No idea, but I will never forget that conversation on a pool deck with a rando mom.
If you are a 18U parent and you get a chance to talk to a 10/12U parent at Futures/JO’s or some random tournament, be kind, pass on knowledge and remember we all at one time stood in their shoes wondering about what the future held for our precious princesses (and princes). Passing knowledge down and remind them that the score of a 10U game is not as important as watching your child grasp the ball and passing the ball is more rewarding.
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Well, if you hear "come on reff, call it both ways’ Good chance that was me 
Welcome to CIF-SS Div 5 Water Polo!
The most memorable was a 12u Coach yelling loud enough for all players and parents on deck - “just stop Jack, the rest of them are nobody’s” and w/o any shame whatsoever
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Best one for me was coach to the ref right after getting a red card, “Finally. That was the first good call you made this game.”
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Scoooreboooooard!!!
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I have seen too many games where the scoreboard is wrong. I can’t recall seeing it happen in other sports like it does polo. It should be so easy since the game literally stops. By “wrong” I don’t mean just not updated.
As someone who’s been super frustrated by this, and also had it happen to them while running the clock, it’s understandable once you do the latter. You’re doing a lot of things at once when you’re on the clock/board, and it’s often forgotten. Add to that, especially at high school games, that the clock operator is usually a student or parent, something you would never see at most other sports, it adds to what the referee has to manage, which is why they lose the score as well. This sport doesn’t do a lot to help itself.
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Here’s a classic oldie:
“Break his arm Tommy”
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Parents yelling for new 30 on the shot clock when there’s 15 seconds left in the quarter. Also had a very funny coach loudly tell my kid during a break between periods “you may not believe this but I’ve been coaching for a long time and I actually know what I’m doing”
“Go to Work!” 100x by the same simpleton 
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My favorite from the Super Finals 18u championship game when pivotal calls went against Stanford was the lady yelling the most bitter version of “Merry Christmas!” she could manage. I love passionate fans and that was one of the highlights of the tournament for me.
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parent to ref when on defense when ball is entered: “Watch the push off!”
same parent to ref when on offense when ball is entered: “That’s a kickout!”
the whole damn game…
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you’d think that with all these international-caliber reffing experts in the stands we would not be struggling to find officials for the games 
Yesterday at a game I was close enough to hear one side of the audio dialogue between refs and I’d love to have the full running commentary. There was some funny hot-takes on some players and parents in there.
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everyone on here is cracking me up
Yet I guarantee you half of y’all are guilty of these and are the ones that the refs are talking about
I think I should’ve made it things that coaches say because holy cow if you were there last weekend, one Coach completely lost his mind and got more cards than Hallmark.
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Most of us have likely been guilty of these at some point - I was definitely in that camp when our son was a 10u and 12u - but when our son moved to 14u, I was fortunate to be around other parents who who were on their 2nd or 3rd child in polo who had a much more measured approach. Seeing how they carried themselves helped me take a step back and be more cognizant of my own actions/comments, and ultimately became a better sports parent
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^^^^^^^This…
I was a lunatic in 12u and early parts of 14u… now settled in to “the game is the game” and just want my kid to enjoy the ride…
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